Commentary: Remember Richie Havens' message

Sunday

Aug 18, 2013 at 11:33 AMAug 18, 2013 at 11:47 AM

"Freedom!” he sang. And he sang it with such hurried energy that you couldn't tell if he was angry at the state of the world, or if he was pleading for sanity, or if he was naturally furiously excited.

Timothy Malcolm

“Freedom!” he sang. And he sang it with such hurried energy that you couldn't tell if he was angry at the state of the world, or if he was pleading for sanity, or if he was naturally furiously excited.

It didn't really matter how Richie Havens was doing it up there, onstage as the opening act of the Woodstock Music & Art Fair. Three days of peace and music, the organizers claimed, and it was starting late with a quick fix. Havens wasn't supposed to open the festival, but the rail-thin man draped in salmon-colored clothing was recruited to play for what seemed to be an endless crowd. Hundreds of thousands of people, most of them young and longing for some message to pull them close together. So Havens did what was natural to him. He played guitar, and at the end, he screamed “Freedom!”

This year marks the 44-year anniversary of the Woodstock Music & Art Fair, an August 1969 festival on Bethel farmland that resulted in a once-in-a-lifetime moment. And of anyone, it was Havens who set the tone on Aug. 15, 1969.

Today, Richie Havens' ashes will be spread upon the site of the festival, once owned by Max Yasgur and now owned by Bethel Woods Center for the Arts. Thousands will visit to attend, or just to watch, as friends from all across Havens' life gather to celebrate the man who started it all. He could have screamed a protest song. He could have played it quietly, stirring the kids entering the festival grounds into an easy night of folk music. He could have played short and protested himself, but Havens - who was asked to remain onstage and play whatever he knew - improvised a song that defined his generation, and many who came before and after. “Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,” he sang to the kids who trampled to Bethel without their parents, in protest of their parents, in protest of the turbulence surrounding them. War on the television. Riots in their city streets. Blacks and whites on edge against each other. Raging fires and regular abuse. Havens grasped the moment and claimed the weekend. “Freedom! is what everyone wanted. Freedom from tyranny and fear, freedom from megalomania and the militia. Havens stated it clear. The following weekend would let it out.

On Monday morning, Aug. 18, Jimi Hendrix evoked from his guitar a searing “Star-Spangled Banner.” He burst the bombs and launched the rockets from his instrument, quietly but assuredly bringing a black cloud over Bethel. His sound was that of the days ahead - further rioting and political upheaval, Altamont and the retreat from Vietnam. But it was Havens that pointed the way beyond that, pleading very clearly that if we could just get past the turmoil, if we can just work through the pain, those brighter days will shine.

And they have. They really have. The world is scary still and that may never change, but our world today is more open, more inclusive and more in tune with the way Havens lived his own life. We cherish the nature around us. We advocate for a better day for our rivers and streams, and we play music for anyone who will listen. We can preach more tolerance and learn to understand others for who they are, but as Havens taught us, nothing can be fully accomplished without patience and acceptance.

If you don't think the world has improved, head to Bethel Woods today and see the crowd that gathers to celebrate Havens. If you don't think his message of life and Woodstock's message of peace haven't absorbed our own lives, and won't continue through our children, see how Havens is remembered. He'll be remembered through peace.

We're nowhere near perfect, and we'll never be. But there's a light ahead. Richie Havens knew that because that's what he felt; what felt natural to Havens was to play his guitar and shout “Freedom!” He could have sang anything, could have played anything, but his natural instinct was to tell the world that life will improve, the world will carry on and shine brighter than before. His message will remain, and if you ever need a reminder, the wind will be calling on the field that Max Yasgur owned, the field that will forever remain a part of us.